Stuff In the Corners

My apartment—like the rest of my life—is so full of clutter and half-packed boxes, it reminds me of the game where one piece must be moved to the open space to make room to move towards another.

The carpet and freshly sanded floors are covered over with boxes piled up, needing to be condensed and stored away for another decade. Each time reopened, a precious story falls out, a trinket outlived, finally to be tossed on, replaced by some new momento with a more powerful luster.

Since the walls of shelves are mine alone, this time several objects long stored away make it back to the light of day. Additionally, there is the added wealth of treasures from my mother’s collection, a bronze purse and sacred (to her) shards of glass.

With little rhymes and lots of reasons, these objects resonate with symbolism for an era, holding their places of honor to remind me of the boy I was and the man I wanted to be. My heart fills when my eyes land on the St Bernard’s brandy cask (she actually wore it at ski lodges), the boomerang (that took 45 years to circle back), the antique carpenter’s plane (that formed the logo for my new business), or my daughters’ artwork. No amount of dust obscures the force of energy these pieces inspire.

Outside, the ghost of the cannon still hovers, marking a place of grief and hurt for all that has been lost in these two years between packing up my parent’s lifelong home and my own of Marriage and Family. Come spring, this spot will be a garden, a shrine seeded with memories and bursting forth in colors of renewal.

Beyond this little oasis slowly transforming from cave to vibrant home, the details shift the open space elusively just beyond my sight. Boxes full and partial still are sorted and ferried from our house to my house, hers, the dump or recycling center. Tasks of complicated paperwork and a simple punchlist distract my attention from the limitless future to be created.

With each box condensed and stored, each task checked off, more light floods into the corners of my heart, even as the leaves burst and drop, and the sun races towards its darkening solstice and the long winter ahead. Music is always at my fingertips now my piano fills half the living room, my guitars hang on the wall within easy reach. A new network of friends are face-to-face, or just a finger-tip away through Emails, entering my home to keep me company.

And at any moment, a glance to the corner shelf, like donning a favorite jacket, slathers that exuberant teen-age boys grin with a St Bernard’s kiss, giant paws on the shoulders, or awes the young dad with his child’s wondering eyes and proud excitement, unquestioning trust.

Zenlike, we are only in the One moment, the Now, but it is colored—like the leaves on this brilliant Vermont crisp morning—with so very much more.

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